History Bump

This project contributes significantly to my work on contra-power sexual harassment insofar as I can make connections in terms of how Composition may be particularly vulnerable to contra-power sexual harassment, given the historical nature of the field and the assumptions which are prevalent on a university campus about writing instruction.

I will divide my research into two parts: 1) historical work on how the field is constructed as feminized, and 2) historical work involving The Writing Program at Syracuse University. The archival work I will conduct includes student evaluations. Further, I will conduct interviews with faculty who may have experienced issues of harassment/student resistance.

Historical Representation of the field:

• How is the field viewed as feminized? By whom? And, on what grounds?
• Does this representation of the field as feminized reflect second wave feminism in terms of the actual bodies that taught composition?
• How can this representation be revised to account for additional markings on the body which may indicate lesser power (race, ethnicity, age, ability, etc)?

Questions concerning reading evaluations:

• Is the feminization of composition reflected in the ways that students evaluate their teachers? How does the race, gender, sexuality of the teacher effect the student’s assessment?
• Does assessment of writing instruction change with technology? Is/how is the assumedly feminized field of composition assessed by students within this space?
• Can a comparative analysis be made between the ways writing classes are assessed and other introductory courses at SU?

Generative Bibliography
Apple, M.W. Teachers and Texts: A Political Economy of Class and Gender Relations in Education. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986.
Batsleer, Janet, Tony Davies, Rebecca O'Rourke, and Chris Weedon. Rewriting English: Cultural Politics of Gender and Class. New York: Methuen, 1985.
Batson, Lorie Goodman. "Defining Ourselves as Woman (in the Profession)." Pre/Text 10 (Spring/Summer 1989): 117-120.
Bechtel, Judith. "Why Teaching Writing Always Brings up Questions of Equity." Teaching Writing: Pedagogy, Gender, and Equity. Ed. Cynthia L. Caywood and Gillian R. Overing. Albany: SUNY UP, 1987. 179-84.
Bell, Sandra, M. Morrow, and Evangelis Tastsoglou. "Teaching in Environments of Resistance: Toward a Critical, Feminist, and Antiracist Pedagogy." Meeting the Challenge: Innovative Feminist Pedagogies in Action. Ed. Maralee Mayberry and Ellen Cronan Rose. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Boardman, Kathleen A., and Joy Ritchie. "Rereading Feminism's Absence and Presence in Composition." History, Reflection, and Narrative: The Professionalization of Composition 1963-1983. Eds. Mary Rosner, Beth Boehm, and Debra Journet. Greenwich, CT: Ablex, 1998. 143-162.
Caywood, Cynthia L., and Gillian R. Overing, eds. Teaching Writing: Pedagogy, Gender, and Equity. Albany: SUNY P, 1987.
Desmet, Christy. "Equivalent Students, Equitable Classrooms." Feminism and Composition Studies: In Other Words. Ed. Susan C. Jarratt and Lynn Worsham. New York: Modern Language Assocation, 1998. 153-171.
Donnelly, Michael. "Male Instructor, Feminist Pedagogy: Interrogating Presence and Authority in the Classroom." Pre/Text: A Journal of Rhetorical Theory 16.3-4 (Fall-Winter 1995): 228-244.
Edwards, Lynnell Major. "What Should We Call You? Women, Composition Studies, and the Question of Eminent Authority." Composition Studies 28.2 (Fall 2000): 43-59.
Eichhorn, Jill, et alia. "A Symposium on Feminist Experiences in the Composition Classroom." College Composition and Communication 43.3 (October 1992): 297-322.

Enos, Theresa. Gender Roles and Faculty Lives in Rhetoric and Composition. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1996.

Flynn, Elizabeth. "Strategic, Counter-Strategic, and Reactive Resistance in the Feminist Classroom." Insurrections: Approaches to Resistance in Composition Studies. Ed. Andrea Greenbaum. Albany: SUNY UP, 2001.

Fontaine, Sheryl I., and Susan Hunter eds. Writing Ourselves into the Story: Unheard Voices from Composition Studies. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1993.

[selected chapters]

Miller, Susan. Textual Carnivals: The Politics of Composition. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1991. [selected chapters]
Payne, Michelle. “Rend(er)ing Women’s Authority in the Writing Classroom.” Feminism and Composition. Ed. Gesa E. Kirsch, Faye Spencer Maor, Lance Massey, Lee Nickoson-Massey, and Mary P. Sheridan-Rabideau. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 2003. 398-410.

Phelps, Louise, and Janet Emig. Feminine Principles and Women’s Experiences in American Composition and Rhetoric. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1995. 289-341.

Reichert, Pegeen. "A Contributing Listener and Other Composition Wives: Reading and Writing the Feminine Metaphors in Composition Studies." JAC 16.1 (1996): 141-57.

Sánchez-Casal, Susan, and Amie A. MacDonald, eds. Twenty-First Century Feminist Classrooms: Pedagogies of Identity and Difference. Palgrave, 2002.

Schell, Eileen E. "The Feminization of Composition: Questioning the Metaphors that Bind Women Teachers." Composition Studies/Freshman English News 25 (1997). Rpt. Feminism and Composition: A Critical Sourcebook. Ed. Gesa E. Kirsch, Faye Spencer Maor, Lance Massey, Lee Nickoson-Massey, and Mary P, Sheridan-Rabideau. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003. 552-557.
- - -. Gypsy Academics and Mother-Teachers: Gender, Contingent Labor, and Writing Instruction. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton-Cook, 1998.
- - -. “The Cost of Caring: ‘Feminism’ and Contingent Women Workers in Composition Studies.” Feminism and Composition Studies: In Other Words. Ed. Susan Jarratt and Lynn Worsham. New York: MLA, 1998. 74-93.